Teens 'Remix' The News: World Cup, Controversial Shooting Range And More

Area teens have been listening to radio news stories and remixing them with original hip hop beats. Remixing the News is a partnership between WUNC and the Beat Making Lab.

The teens are from area high schools including Chapel Hill High, East Chapel Hill High, and Research Triangle High. They met regularly after school throughout the spring and then completed a week-long summer workshop.

First they learned how to use laptops and software to make their own hip hop beats. Then they began to listen to news stories and analyze them. Soon the teens married the music and the stories.

WUNC reporter Eric Mennel's June 20, 2014 story received a lot of interest from the general public and the teens. It was one of the top stories on the station's website for more than a week. It is about a shooting range that opened adjacent to a cat sanctuary.

Akib Khan took the stage name DJ Akhan for the summer. It was pretty easy for Akib to know which story he should remix. It's a story that he actually reported for the station last summer as a part of a different project in which young people learn the basics of reporting. In Akib's original report he focused on the growing Burmese refugee community in Carrboro.

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Original story: Akib Khan Looks Into The Growing Community Of Burmese Refugees In Carrboro.

Akib (DJ Akhan) worked with Sadie Zimet (DJ Bounce) to remix the story this way:

Ryan Levin is one of the leaders of the Chapel Hill Beat Making Lab. He said many of the teens who participated in the project gravitated towards stories about education.

"Since so many of our beat-makers are students, they often identify with the students featured .. and frequently have strong opinions about pieces dealing with education," Levin said.

So it's no surprise that we received three different remixes on a story by reporter Dave DeWitt. His story was about a group of Moral Monday protesters who demanded to speak to Senate Leader Phil Berger.

Senator Berger wasn’t in his office. That wasn’t unexpected, so the protestors went to the next item on the script. They sat down in front of Berger’s door until the Senate session ended. A half hour later, with no Berger in sight, the Capitol Police came through with a polite but stern order: The building was closing and everyone had to leave.

The protesters began to get ready to get arrested. But here’s where script took an unexpected turn. Just a few seconds later, Senator Berger came around the corner, pulled some couches into a circle, and offered to have a discussion.

We've sampled the remixes here to show you how the teens approached the same story in different ways. The first 30 seconds was mixed by DJ Bark (Nadeen Ramadan) and DJ Lentball (Lopaz Evans). The next 30 seconds was produced by DJ Bri Bri (Briana Davis) and DJ Milk (Makayla Kemp).